Why do humans care so much about justice? The Bible has a fascinating response, humans are set apart from all other creatures as the image of God. God’s representatives, who rule the world by “their” definition of good and evil, and this identity is the bedrock of the Bible’s view of justice. All humans are equal before God and have the right to be treated with dignity and fairness, no matter who we are. But we know how the world really works, the Bible addresses that too, it shows how we are constantly redefining good and evil to our own advantage at the expense of others. Self-preservation, the weaker someone is, the easier it is to take advantage of them. In the biblical story, we see this happening on a personal level, but also in families and then in communities and in whole civilizations that create injustice, especially towards the vulnerable. Out of this whole mess, God chose a man named Abraham to start a new kind of family. Specifically, Abraham was to teach his family to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.
Righteousness, it’s an ethical standard that refers to right relationships between people, it’s about treating others as the image of God, with the God-given dignity they deserve. Justice, it can refer to retributive justice, if we steal something, we pay the consequences. Most often in the Bible, justice refers to restorative justice, it means going a step further, actually seeking out vulnerable people who are being taken advantage of and helping them, some people call this charity. But justice involves way more, it means taking steps to advocate for the vulnerable and changing social structures to prevent injustice. So, justice and righteousness are about a radical selfless way of life. We find this idea all over the Bible, Proverbs 31:8-9, what does it mean to bring about just righteousness? Open our mouth for those who can’t speak for themselves and what do the words mean for the prophets, like Jeremiah, Jeremiah 22:3, rescue the disadvantaged and don’t tolerate oppression or violence against the immigrant, the orphan and the widow.
The book of Psalm 146:7-9, the Lord God upholds justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry and sets the prisoner free, but he thwarts the way of the wicked. He thwarts the wicked? Wicked, it means guilty or in the wrong, it refers to someone who mistreats another human, ignoring their dignity as an image of God. So justice and righteousness is a big deal to God, it is what Abraham’s family, the Israelites, were to be all about, they ended up as immigrant slaves being oppressed unjustly in Egypt. God confronted Egypt’s evil, declaring them to be wicked, guilty of injustice, he rescued Israel, but the tragic irony of the Old Testament story is that these redeemed people went on to commit the same acts of injustice against the vulnerable. So God sent prophets, who declared Israel guilty. Sadly, history has shown that when the oppressed gain power, they often become oppressors themselves, we all participate in injustice, actively or passively, even unintentionally, we’re all the guilty ones.
This is the surprising message of the biblical story, God’s response to humanity’s legacy of injustice is to give us a gift, the life of Jesus. Jesus did righteousness and justice and yet he died on behalf of the guilty, but then God declared Jesus to be the righteous one, when he rose from the dead. Now, Jesus offers his life to the guilty, so that they too can be declared righteous before God, not because of anything they have done, but because of what Jesus did for them. The earliest followers of Jesus experienced this righteousness from God, not just as a new status, but as a power that changed their lives and compelled them to act in surprising new ways. If God declared someone righteous, when they didn’t deserve it, the only reasonable response is to go and seek righteousness and justice for others. This is a radical way of life, it’s not always convenient or easy, it is courageously making other people’s problems, our problems. This is what Jesus meant by loving your neighbor as yourself, it his about a lifetime commitment fueled by the words of the ancient prophet Micah, God has told you humans what is good and what the Lord requires of you, it is to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
We start to think of ourselves more highly than we should, ignoring our own blind spots. It can feel natural to start handing out God’s wisdom to others when we think they need it, the earnest quest for doing good could lead to a lack of self-awareness and a judgmental attitude. Do not judge, but it’s not easy when we see other people living foolishly. Jesus invites us to take our instinct to judge others and instead, empathize with them, how would we want to be judged if we were in their place? The problem is we’re often unaware of our own character flaws and of the biases that can distort how we see others. Jesus takes the impulse to judge others and he redirects it as an opportunity for critical self-reflection.
Righteousness, it’s an ethical standard that refers to right relationships between people, it’s about treating others as the image of God, with the God-given dignity they deserve. Justice, it can refer to retributive justice, if we steal something, we pay the consequences. Most often in the Bible, justice refers to restorative justice, it means going a step further, actually seeking out vulnerable people who are being taken advantage of and helping them, some people call this charity. But justice involves way more, it means taking steps to advocate for the vulnerable and changing social structures to prevent injustice. So, justice and righteousness are about a radical selfless way of life. We find this idea all over the Bible, Proverbs 31:8-9, what does it mean to bring about just righteousness? Open our mouth for those who can’t speak for themselves and what do the words mean for the prophets, like Jeremiah, Jeremiah 22:3, rescue the disadvantaged and don’t tolerate oppression or violence against the immigrant, the orphan and the widow.
The book of Psalm 146:7-9, the Lord God upholds justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry and sets the prisoner free, but he thwarts the way of the wicked. He thwarts the wicked? Wicked, it means guilty or in the wrong, it refers to someone who mistreats another human, ignoring their dignity as an image of God. So justice and righteousness is a big deal to God, it is what Abraham’s family, the Israelites, were to be all about, they ended up as immigrant slaves being oppressed unjustly in Egypt. God confronted Egypt’s evil, declaring them to be wicked, guilty of injustice, he rescued Israel, but the tragic irony of the Old Testament story is that these redeemed people went on to commit the same acts of injustice against the vulnerable. So God sent prophets, who declared Israel guilty. Sadly, history has shown that when the oppressed gain power, they often become oppressors themselves, we all participate in injustice, actively or passively, even unintentionally, we’re all the guilty ones.
This is the surprising message of the biblical story, God’s response to humanity’s legacy of injustice is to give us a gift, the life of Jesus. Jesus did righteousness and justice and yet he died on behalf of the guilty, but then God declared Jesus to be the righteous one, when he rose from the dead. Now, Jesus offers his life to the guilty, so that they too can be declared righteous before God, not because of anything they have done, but because of what Jesus did for them. The earliest followers of Jesus experienced this righteousness from God, not just as a new status, but as a power that changed their lives and compelled them to act in surprising new ways. If God declared someone righteous, when they didn’t deserve it, the only reasonable response is to go and seek righteousness and justice for others. This is a radical way of life, it’s not always convenient or easy, it is courageously making other people’s problems, our problems. This is what Jesus meant by loving your neighbor as yourself, it his about a lifetime commitment fueled by the words of the ancient prophet Micah, God has told you humans what is good and what the Lord requires of you, it is to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
We start to think of ourselves more highly than we should, ignoring our own blind spots. It can feel natural to start handing out God’s wisdom to others when we think they need it, the earnest quest for doing good could lead to a lack of self-awareness and a judgmental attitude. Do not judge, but it’s not easy when we see other people living foolishly. Jesus invites us to take our instinct to judge others and instead, empathize with them, how would we want to be judged if we were in their place? The problem is we’re often unaware of our own character flaws and of the biases that can distort how we see others. Jesus takes the impulse to judge others and he redirects it as an opportunity for critical self-reflection.
